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Environmental Impact Assessment of Sustainable Agriculture: Enhancing Soil Fertility and Crop Production

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Soil Conservation and Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2021) | Viewed by 9600

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Dr. Alessia Perego

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Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Milan, 20133 Milano, MI, Italy
Interests: crop modeling; nitrate leaching; soil organic carbon; conservation agriculture; N₂O emissions
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Dear Colleagues,

Agricultural production is the main source of food supply worldwide. Besides this key role, it is often regarded as being responsible for decreasing soil fertility and agroecosystem biodiversity. Moreover, changes and extreme events in the world’s climate intensify the impact of agricultural practices on the environment, from field to regional scales.

In this context, many field experiments and modeling analyses are carried out to identify optimized agricultural management practices for enhancing crop production and concurrently reducing environmental impacts.

This Special Issue is seeking new research, review, and opinion articles dealing with aspects related to agricultural sustainability, such as soil organic carbon sequestration, water and nutrient use efficiency, climate adaptation, weed and pest control, edaphic biodiversity, surface and groundwater pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. Contributions will be subject to rigorous peer review and, thereafter, the novel research results and applications will be rapidly and widely dissemination.

Dr. Alessia Perego
Guest Editor

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Keywords

crop production
crop adaptation
soil fertility
soil biodiversity
soil carbon stock
nitrate leaching
greenhouse gas emissions
water use efficiency

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 2130 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Reducing Topdressing N Fertilization with Variable Rates Does Not Reduce Maize Yield

by Calogero Schillaci, Tommaso Tadiello, Marco Acutis and Alessia Perego

Sustainability 2021, 13(14), 8059; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13148059 - 19 Jul 2021

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1754

Abstract

Proximal sensing represents a growing avenue for precision fertilization and crop growth monitoring. In the last decade, precision agriculture technology has become affordable in many countries; Global Positioning Systems for automatic guidance instruments and proximal sensors can be used to guide the distribution of nutrients such as nitrogen (N) fertilization using real-time applications. A two-year field experiment (2017–2018) was carried out to quantify maize yield in response to variable rate (VR) N distribution, which was determined with a proximal vigour sensor, as an alternative to a fixed rate (FR) in a cereal-livestock farm located in the Po valley (northern Italy). The amount of N distributed for the FR (140 kg N ha⁻¹) was calculated according to the crop requirement and the regional regulation: ±30% of the FR rate was applied in the VR treatment according to the Vigour S-index calculated on-the-go from the CropSpec sensor. The two treatments of N fertilization did not result in a significant difference in yield in both years. The findings suggest that the application of VR is more economically profitable than the FR application rate, especially under the hypothesis of VR application at a farm scale. The outcome of the experiment suggests that VR is a viable and profitable technique that can be easily applied at the farm level by adopting proximal sensors to detect the actual crop N requirement prior to stem elongation. Besides the economic benefits, the VR approach can be regarded as a sustainable practice that meets the current European Common Agricultural Policy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Impact Assessment of Sustainable Agriculture: Enhancing Soil Fertility and Crop Production)

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13 pages, 699 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Management Influence on the Quality of an Agricultural Soil Destined for Forage Production and Evaluated by Physico-Chemical and Biological Indicators

by Silvia Baizán, Fernando Vicente and Adela Martínez-Fernández

Sustainability 2021, 13(9), 5159; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13095159 - 05 May 2021

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1922

Abstract

The European Common Agricultural Policy promotes the sustainable use of soils through the principle of cross-compliance that links direct payments to good farming practices. Thus, it is necessary to find sustainable alternatives to the conventional management for forage production in the Atlantic Arc dairy farms. Two alternative managements (faba bean in monoculture—FB—and faba bean–Italian ryegrass intercrop—FBIR) were cultivated with organic fertilization during two consecutive years, and compared to the conventional management (Italian ryegrass in monoculture—IR—under chemical fertilization) as winter crops. Maize was used as the summer crop to complete the rotations using organic and chemical fertilization, respectively. The forage yield of winter fodder was quantified. Soil samples and summer harvests were performed to analyse the physico-chemical and biological parameters. The best forage yield corresponded to FBIR with 9.2 t dry matter (DM) ha⁻¹ vs. 7.2 and 5.7 t DM ha⁻¹ for FB and IR, respectively. The soil organic matter did not show significant differences among treatments, suggesting that it may be a poor indicator of the management influence on edaphic quality in the short term. Biological indicators were more sensitive and faster to differentiate among managements than chemical indicators. Earthworm abundance was higher in FB and FBIR than IR (p < 0.001), and consequently, soil infiltration was improved with the alternative management (13.90 vs. 2.08 and 0.90 min for IR, FB and FBIR, respectively, p < 0.01). As a result, the soil health diagnosis of the agroecosystem was better for alternative management. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Impact Assessment of Sustainable Agriculture: Enhancing Soil Fertility and Crop Production)

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12 pages, 4128 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Agricultural Soil Phosphorus in Hungary: High Resolution Mapping and Assessment of Socioeconomic and Pedological Factors of Spatiotemporal Variability

by Piroska Kassai and Gergely Tóth

Sustainability 2020, 12(13), 5311; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12135311 - 01 Jul 2020

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2681

Abstract

Over-fertilization before 1989 resulted in high phosphorus levels in agricultural soils of Hungary, but the accumulated reserves seem to have been depleted in recent decades due to under-fertilization. The aims of this study were to map the spatial pattern of phosphorus level and its change in the last few decades in Hungary to document the effect of fertilization and underlying socio-economic conditions on P concentrations, to identify the role of soil properties in changing soil soluble P and to quantify the total amount of soluble phosphorus level change in agricultural areas in the last few decades in the country. Two soil datasets were analyzed (National Pedological and Crop Production Database of Hungary and the Land Use/Land Cover Area Frame Survey, LUCAS, topsoil dataset), representing the status of soil nutrient contents in 1989 and in 2009. The measured phosphorus concentrations were compared to the reported phosphorus fertilization inputs. We also evaluated the effect of some important soil properties on soluble phosphorus content and on its change. We produced three maps by using kriging methods: soluble phosphorus levels in 1989, in 2009 and the change between 1989 and 2009. The results confirmed that phosphorus levels in agricultural areas depend mainly on agricultural use, while soil physical characteristics play a smaller role. Nevertheless, we demonstrated that the decrease in soil phosphorus levels was significantly influenced by soil chemistry (pH and CaCO₃ content). The mean soluble phosphorus level was 108 mg/kg in 1989 and 28 mg/kg in 2009, and the median values were 100 and 22. The total loss (caused by harvesting, fixation and erosion) is ~1.5 million tons of soluble phosphorus, which is twice as much as the reported phosphorus balances indicated. In conclusion, our results show that approximately 50% of agricultural areas in Hungary are characterized by a very low supply of phosphorus (according to the latest data), posing a risk of nutrient depletion in these areas. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Impact Assessment of Sustainable Agriculture: Enhancing Soil Fertility and Crop Production)

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21 pages, 1716 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Comparison of Soil Properties and Organic Components in Infusions According to Different Aerial Appearances of Tea Plantations in Central Taiwan

by Prapasiri Tongsiri, Wen-Yu Tseng, Yuan Shen and Hung-Yu Lai

Sustainability 2020, 12(11), 4384; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12114384 - 27 May 2020

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2523

Abstract

The soil properties, climate, type of management, and fermentation process critically affect the productivity and quality of tea. In this study, tender tea leaves were collected from central Taiwan, and organic components in their infusions as well as physical and chemical soil properties differentiated using aerial photographs where good (G) and bad (B) growth exhibitions were determined. Eleven physical and chemical soil properties as well as five compounds in tea infusions were analyzed to determine the main factor that affects the growth of these tea trees. The Fleiss’ kappa statistic results revealed that the wet aggregate stability, pH, and exchangeable potassium content exhibit the most significant effect, with scores of 0.86, 0.64, and 0.62, respectively. Soil quality calculated using the mean weight diameter based on 11 soil properties revealed that ~67% of the total score of G is greater than that of B. Generally, contents of total polyphenols (51.67%) and catechins (51.76%) in the infusions of B were greater than those of G. In addition, significant positive correlations between the free amino acids content and soil properties, including pH and copper content, were observed. However, a negative correlation between the free amino acids and flavone contents and most of the soil properties was observed. The survey data set obtained from this study can provide useful information for the improved management of tea plantations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Impact Assessment of Sustainable Agriculture: Enhancing Soil Fertility and Crop Production)

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